


Pathways Travelled

by MathiasHyde



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9249977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathiasHyde/pseuds/MathiasHyde
Summary: Yukimura meets Sanada in his dreams.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fulminata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulminata/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】Pathways Travelled／却顾所来径](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9910424) by [9024Scarlett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/9024Scarlett/pseuds/9024Scarlett)



> For the wonderful Fulminata. This was meant to be for Christmas, but uh, better late than never?

The first time Yukimura has the dream, he’s in high school. 

It’s always the same forest, warm with the same dappled light no matter the season. And although he thinks he’s in the same area every time, with the same path stretching in front of him, there’s always new plants he’s never seen before along the way. And when he wakes and looks them up, some are real from other countries halfway around the world, and some don’t exist at all.

The first time he has the dream, there’s nothing but forest in front of him and it is Yukimura himself that makes the first steps along a path of his own that only continues to grow with each visit.

Although he has many other dreams that he remembers, this one is always the most vivid in his mind when he awakes. He can remember each time; the smells, the sounds, the sights, the touch of the plants so clearly it is as if he was really there.

And sometimes Yukimura lets himself believe that it really is real and sometimes he checks his fingers for dirt that’s never there, even though he remembers digging his hands into the soft soil.

Sometimes he thinks it’d be easier if it was real.

–

He thinks he sees someone else through the trees, just once in his many visits throughout the years when he’s in university.

There’s a barely audible laugh off to the side and when Yukimura looks towards it, there’s sparkling between the trees in the distance, like diamonds threaded through cloth reflecting the sunlight. And just as quickly as they appear, they disappear again.

–

“What did you dream about last night, Yukimura?” Niou asks and Yukimura looks up from his sketchbook.

While Niou has never really shown any interest in their art course at university, Yukimura can see the beauty in the discordant colours that splash across Niou’s canvases. It seems much like the male’s personality, with a golden thread of reasoning that spirals through the chaos.

“I dreamed of flowers.” The forest had been filled with them, in all colours he could imagine and some that slipped away from his mind as he woke up and surely didn’t exist.

“Mmm, sounds nice. I talked to you in my dreams last night, I thought that if you had seen me too, it was proof that communication through the dream plane was real.”

“No Niou, I didn’t see you at all.”

“What a shame, that would have been convenient.” 

He goes back to his sketching and then pauses a few moments later to see Niou still watching him expectantly. He supposes he can play along a little. “What were you doing in your dream when you spoke to me?”

Niou’s smile is as enigmatic as ever. “Just things. Seeing my cousin’s family. Travelling between places.” He shrugs and turns away to go back to his work. “It’s kind of nice, that dreams can take you to so many different places.”

–

The path is worn now, with a clear dirt line where he’s walked, endlessly. But he always walks forward, from where he opens his eyes each night to find himself. And it isn’t until years later from the first step forward that he decides to turn around and go the other way.

The path is just as defined as the one he’s trod for years, stretching in much the same way that if he turns back to look, it seems like an almost mirror version of the other way.

But he’s stopped, a few steps into his journey that night and he presses his hand against something cold and invisible, smooth as glass as he runs his hand down it.

There’s nothing on the other side, he can see the path continuing on and Yukimura pulls his hand away.

“What is this?”

There’s no reply, not that he expects one.

–

He meets the dreamer as he turns around again. He’s used to the path behind him being blocked now. It always is every time he turns around to check no matter how far he’s walked before he does.

But this time, there’s a shadow on the other side and Yukimura pauses, pressing his hand against the surface.

“Who’s there?” he asks and there’s only incoherent mumbling in reply, but he sees the shadow shift slightly. It becomes more coherent and Yukimura thinks he sees the sharp line of a nose before the head turns again and it disappears.

“Are you travelling here in dreams too?” Yukimura asks, and surely even Niou would be proud of how much like him he sounds at that moment. It makes him want to laugh at himself, surely that’s a foolish question.

“Yes I am.”

Yukimura pauses and he can’t help the laughter now. “Nice to meet you, then.”

–

“This is the second night in a row I’m here,” the dreamer says and Yukimura stares hard at their shadowed form that seems just a pace away from him.

He thinks he can see the line of their shoulder now, though as he focuses on it more, it disappears into shadow again.

“I return here regularly. It’s nice.”

“Does it get boring? Dreaming about the same thing?”

Sometimes Yukimura has wondered that… but this place never does seem to be that way, even as surely he’s been here dozens… hundreds of times, surely now. He can see their curve of their cheek as they turn their head.

“Someone being here now is different. That makes it less boring.”

–

“I still don’t know your name,” Yukimura says and the dreamer snorts softly.

“I told you during our first meeting.”

How many has it been now? Yukimura’s getting used to opening his eyes to his forest and turning around to hear someone standing behind him. Sometimes he looks at the path ahead of him and the flowers, but it’s not too bad to stop and talk, he decides.

He thinks he can see the sparkling of something between the trees again and he looks towards it until it vanish and he turns his attention back to the other person.

“I couldn’t hear it.”

The response is just as garbled, fading into silence even as Yukimura leans to press his ear against the barricade. He reaches his hand forward, as if he could so easily just touch the person standing so close… but there’s nothing but the smooth, cold of the barrier between them and his hand slides down it.

–

The day is hot as Yukimura sighs and draws a flower on the corner of his notes. There had been flowers springing under his fingertips as he’d sat on the pathway the night before, but there had been no one appearing behind him as long as he’d waited.

“Oh, foxglove!”

It’s Niou, leaning over his desk to look at the picture. Yukimura pauses in his shading and looks at it.

“Yes, it is. Well done, Niou.”

Niou visibly preens at the praise and he laughs as he plucks Yukimura’s pencil out of his fingers to scrawl “Foxglove” over the picture. He grins as he holds the pencil out for Yukimura to take back.

“What was that for?” It had been a half decent sketch as well, and Niou had purposely written over it so his writing couldn’t be erased without ruining the whole thing.

Yukimura sighs.

“Oh, just writing its name. So people can properly know what it is. You never know when you can’t just tell them straight out.”

That makes him pause and Yukimura frowns at him. “Niou...” The question is on the tip of his tongue, but it just seems… ridiculous to even think about something like that, no matter how much he wants to ask.

But Niou doesn’t give him the chance as the lecturer calls the class to an end and Niou skips off before Yukimura can ask him.

–

“Can you write your name for me? In hiragana?” Yukimura asks the dreamer and he can see the surprise on their face before it fades into nothingness. At least their fingertip is clear as it is placed against the invisible wall.

SA

NA

DA

“Sanada,” Yukimura says and there’s no reaction to show that it had been heard. Did the dream even manage to dull the sound of your own name?

He writes his own name, as slow and laborious as Sanada had to ensure the other male can read it. He can see the slight movement of the shadow as though Sanada is surely saying it out loud.

“I can’t hear you,” he says and he sees the shadow move until he can see a whole hand pressing against the barrier and Yukimura thinks he knows the feelings behind it as well as he knows his own as he follows suit. 

–

Of course he looks it up, when he wakes up the next morning.

Sanada.

There’s families by the name, anime characters… but no matter how many keywords he puts in, there’s no real hint about who the dream Sanada could be.

Or even if he exists.

He knows it’s a foolish thought to even entertain the idea that Sanada’s real – after all, dreams were just an invention of his own sleeping mind - but as he keeps seeing the man and talking to him, it’s harder to keep telling himself that.

\--

How many details has he forgotten upon waking up, Yukimura wonders. He’s woken up partway through conversations before, and although the dreams remain vivid, sometimes the details slip between his fingers like water, no matter how tightly he tries to grasp them.

Sanada. Twenty-one and studying at university. He doesn’t know which one, as the name fades into misunderstanding when Sanada tries to speak it. He’d once tried to get Sanada to describe it in as vague terms as possible and all he’d learned through his own laughter was that Sanada is definitely not an artistic sort.

He has an older brother. Last week he went to the zoo with his nephew.

Just a myriad of details that Yukimura can recall, so clearly in the man’s voice that as he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine the man saying it again.

But how much else have they spoken about that he can’t remember?

Yukimura doesn’t know.

–

If he tries, he can sketch the outline of Sanada’s face easily enough, it’s become clearer with every visit. He can see the line of his nose even as his eyes are still lost in shadow and Yukimura hesitates before he shades it in.

Sometimes, he gets a flash of an intense gaze, but those are rare and few between.

His hands are clear at least, touching against the invisible surface and Yukimura presses his fingers against it too, feeling the warmth that passes through it even as the rest of the barrier he touches feels cold.

“What’s this?”

It’s Niou again and Yukimura automatically moves his pencil away so Niou can’t just write over the sketch as he’s wont to do.

“Just someone I’ve met.”

Niou tilts his head and looks at Sanada’s face, frowning slightly to himself.

“I think he has furry eyebrows, you should consider this,” Niou says and he pulls out a pencil with a flourish to draw them in himself. Severe but well shaped and Yukimura could bring himself to believe it was real. At least until Niou draws little antenna on both eyebrows and laughs.

–

The eyebrows are there, the next time he sees Sanada in his dreams and Yukimura squints. He’d sketched in a severe mouth that he sometimes sees as he looks closely when Sanada talks and it’s there tonight, more focused than ever before.

“You haven’t been here lately,” Sanada says and Yukimura shakes his head.

“I’ve been busy with assignments. I don’t sleep as well.”

“Aa...”

Yukimura’s lips curl up and he presses his hand against the wall between them, still cold and smooth… until Sanada does the same and he can feel the warmth of the other body almost as if he’s touching it himself.

“Do you stand and wait here until I appear, then?” he teases, moving his hand higher and he watches as Sanada’s hand follows.

He doesn’t expect an answer, he almost expects the man to leave in fact. Sanada pulls away slightly and Yukimura laughs softly to himself.

“Yes, I do.”

–

Yukimura’s walking from the art studio to the library, to return reference books when he pauses as he sees a familiar sight of white hair down the hallway. He turns automatically and heads towards Niou, who’s talking to someone Yukimura has never seen before.

Clearly not an art student – perhaps someone from one of the many other courses Niou seems to have dabbled in?

“Oh, hey Yukimura!” Niou says, spotting him and Yukimura smiles. 

“I’ll see you later, have fun in class,” Niou says to the other male before he slaps him on the back and turns away to skip towards Yukimura instead.

“Who was that?” Yukimura asks, looking after the boy who was watching them closely for a few moments before he disappeared into the lecture hall.

“That’s Yagyuu, he’s a new friend.”

Yukimura hums in vague interest as he sets off to the library again and Niou follows him. Niou seems to guess the unasked question as he takes a few books from Yukimura’s arms.

“I met him while I was travelling between places. That’s what you wanted to know, right?”

–

“Do you exist, Sanada?” Yukimura finds himself asking, pressing his forehead against the cool surface of the barrier.

There’s warmth now against his forehead, and Yukimura dares not to open his eyes to see its source. It’s fleeting and pulls away much too fast.

“Yes I’m real.”

\--

It’s quiet there now without Sanada and Yukimura wonders if he’s imagining that the path that has been formed by his footsteps throughout the years is disappearing as the greenery grows back. Certainly, the plants seem closer to him as he sits down and leans back against the wall and they spring to life where he rests his hands on the ground.

Sanada doesn’t always appear, just as Yukimura doesn’t dream of the forest every night. But they’re meeting so often now that it seems strange to have silence to himself.

Yukimura keeps his eyes closed as he listens to the sounds around him. There would be a touch of warmth upon his back if Sanada appeared and surely Yukimura would feel it.

But there’s no warmth, the silence finally pierced by the sound of footsteps approaching and Yukimura looks up. There’s the sparkling of diamonds that reflect the dappled light and he narrows his eyes slightly to look through the shine.

It’s a horse, its mane interwoven with gems and the rider hops off with practised ease.

“Yukimura? I would’ve thought you’d have gone by now.”

\--

Yukimura jerks awake and grasps at the already fraying edges of the dream. It had been Niou’s face that swam into view, that had looked down at him with as much surprise as Yukimura felt now upon waking.

It’s still early in the night, hours to go until he needs to be awake.

He sighs and settles back into his bed. But he doesn’t return to his forest that night.

–

Niou looks tired the next morning when Yukimura approaches him, half snoozing on his books as they wait for the lecture to start.

“Did you talk to me in your dreams last night, Niou?” he asks, leaning over his desk and prodding the other male awake.

Niou grumbles and Yukimura prods him again.

“Are you becoming a convert to dream communication?” Niou asks, turning his head to look at Yuimura and although his mouth is hidden by his arm, Yukimura can so easily imagine the teasing grin. “Should we set up a meeting for tonight?”

“Not at all. Just answer my question.”

Niou heaves a sigh and burrows his head more into his arms. “I was busy all night visiting family. They’re so tiring.”

It’s foolish to keep pushing, especially as Yukimura does realise the ludicrousness of what he’s even entertaining. But Niou is always open to whimsical ideas and jokes, and it’ll be easy enough to play off as one.

“You don’t own any horses? You looked very picturesque riding one last night in my dream, maybe you should think about it.”

Perhaps a horse with diamonds threaded through its mane like starlight?

Niou’s eyes narrow in amusement and he sits up a little as their lecturer finally walks in.

“No, that would be my cousin that owns the horses. I just borrow them.”

–

He can see the cut of Sanada’s hair that throws the shadows that cover his eyes even more into focus. The arms, the legs, even the torso are visible and surely now if he ever saw Sanada in the street, he would be able to recognise him.

Yukimura won’t admit that he’s stared after males in the street in recent days, even at the faces around university, looking.

How long has it been now since he’s started having an intruder in his dreams? How many times has he met Sanada here now?

How long since he’s walked ahead on the pathway before him, where once he was satisfied just walking and exploring, touching the plants and taking in the atmosphere?

He can’t even begin to guess.

If he presses his cheek against the invisible wall, there’s warmth there that trails down his cheek and lingers and Yukimura sighs as he pulls away.

What a silly dream.

He turns away to head down the path again, to venture back into the ever stretching forward pathway and even takes one, two steps away – would the barrier disappear behind him, he wonders. If he turns around now, will it be nothing but the pathway behind him once more with no shadow standing there waiting?

“I want to meet you,” comes Sanada’s voice and Yukimura pauses, not letting himself turn around. “I’ll be at ----”

And as always, specifics fade into nothingness and Yukimura closes his eyes. “I couldn’t hear you,” he says and he tries to ignore the bite of frustration in his voice.

–

“I waited for you.”

_And you never showed up._

–

Had Sanada given him an address after that? Tried to write something on the barrier for him to read?

Yukimura doesn’t know and no matter how hard he tries to remember, lying in bed staring at the ceiling far past when he needs to be leaving the house for class, he can’t recall.

If he tries to set up his own meeting and Sanada doesn’t show up… is it that Sanada didn’t understand where to go, or proof that they really are just dreams and he doesn’t exist outside of the forest?

And how many times is he prepared to try to find out?

–

Sanada disappears after that, no matter how many times Yukimura returns to his forest dream and looks and waits. Perhaps he comes earlier, or later than Yukimura remembers.

Maybe they do have conversations that escape his waking memories.

There’s no warmth as Yukimura presses his hand, his forehead against the invisible wall between them that remains smooth and cold, no matter how long he waits. Until he eventually pulls away and turns to venture down his now overgrown path through the forest again.


End file.
